Sick at Stormcage
by TheSpaceHairAndTheSpaceIdiot
Summary: The Doctor finds River cold and sick in her cell at Stormcage. Leaving her there to suffer never crossed his mind for even a moment.


A/N: This came from a prompt on tumblr - "The Doctor finds River ill with the flu in Stormcage, and instead of leaving her there to suffer in the cold, he takes her onto the Tardis and nurses her back to health." Out of all the Mattex prompts I got and filled, this was the only RiverxDoctor one I got, so it's the only one that can get put up here. But if you're interested in Matt/Alex, head to my profile for links to my tumblr and Ao3 account! :)

**Sick at Stormcage**

The Doctor twirled around the console, flipping switches and pulling levers. He put more effort than usual into plotting his destination, excitement coursing through his veins as the Tardis shuddered and wheezed around him.

Any adventure, any time or place was cause for celebration, but today was special. He was on his way to Stormcage to pick River up. He wasn't heading to some party with the chance of meeting up with her randomly, neither one of them was calling for the other's help, and today was not one of their pre-planned dates. It was one of the special days (and by special he meant perfectly frequent but no less wonderful) where he was simply popping in on his wife and swooping her up as a surprise.

He only hoped she wasn't already out on some other madcap adventure, leaving him to find only an empty cell and dozens of bothered and bewildered guards. That had happened on more than one occasion and it was never the most pleasant situation to land in.

As soon as the Tardis landed, he rushed over to the monitor, checking to make sure that River was indeed in her cell and saw her huddled under the blanket of her bed. This didn't strike him as strange at all. It was probably the middle of the night and when not in the middle of a war zone or equivalent madness, River did partake in a few hours of sleep most nights (and when they were together, the Doctor would join her but only because he would find himself incredibly bored without her next to him and not because he was in any way tired himself or because he simply liked to lay entangled with his wife and bury his nose in her hair as he fell asleep and wake to her head resting on his chest or any other nonsense like that. Definitely not.)

Itching to simply bound out the door and drag River from her bed, the Doctor nonetheless took a moment to check himself over in the reflective surface of the console. After checking his breath, smoothing his hair into just the right style, and straightening his bow tie, he finally deemed himself ready.

He stepped out of the Tardis, forgoing his usual impressive swagger since River wasn't even awake to see it yet, and crept slowly towards the cell. He pulled his sonic out and quickly unlocked the door, grateful when the sound didn't wake her. He may be only moments from waking her on purpose but he didn't want the harsh sound of the sonic to to be what did it.

He padded slowly closer to where she lay and it wasn't until he perched himself at the edge of her tiny, thin mattress that he noticed the first signs of something wrong. River wasn't just tucked under the thin blanket, she was huddled under it, clutching it around her shoulders even as she slept and now that he was close enough to see, he noticed she was shivering.

That alone would normally indicate just that she was freezing in this drafty cell with only a threadbare blanket to cover her, and while he wouldn't have been happy to find his wife kept under such conditions, it wouldn't have been cause for alarm. It was when he brought his hand up to gently cup her cheek, however, that he felt her skin ablaze under his palm.

Worry flooded both his hearts. It wasn't that, as part Time Lord, River was immune to sickness – even he, to the contrary of what he may admit, got sick every once in a while. But any illness severe enough to reduce River to her current state was cause for concern. River was usually an extremely light sleeper. After years of training and having to constantly be on alert, she usually awoke at the slightest sound or movement and here he was, resting on her bed for the better part of a minute after sonicing her door open and touching her face. She didn't appear any longer to simply be asleep and he thought it more likely whatever it was she was suffering from had knocked her out.

He tried not to let his worry overcome his senses – she would be fine. He just needed to get her to the Tardis and everything would be fine. Whatever this was, was obviously very not good but it hardly seemed life-threatening so long as he got her sorted out immediately.

Quickly, he stood up and reached under her mattress to retrieve her tool belt where he knew she kept all of her equipment, her gun (no matter how much he hated when she brought it aboard), and most importantly, her diary. He slung it over his shoulder, knowing she would hate to not have it with her when she awoke, and carefully scooped River up into his arms, blanket still around her body.

Finally, he felt her stir. As he tried to focus all of his concentration on not being his usual clumsy self and dropping her, her eyes fluttered open. Instead of attempting to jerk out of his hold, like he expected her to do when waking to someone carrying her in their arms, her eyes focused on his face, recognizing him instantly. That was good then, at least she wasn't delirious and her mental functions were normal.

"Sweetie? What are you doing?" Her voice was weak, brittle with cold and exhaustion and illness.

"Getting you out of here, what does it look like, dear?" he replied, glancing down at her with a small, comforting smile on his lips.

She didn't respond. Instead, she merely nodded and sunk her head down to rest on his chest, shutting her eyes in sleep once again.

Sighing, the Doctor reached the Tardis and before he could properly think on how exactly he was to open the doors with two armfuls of River, they swung open of their own accord. Muttering his thanks to his beloved time machine, he entered the console room, passing through it quickly and heading straight to the med bay, determined to have his usual energetic, gun-happy, innuendo-spewing wife awake and well once more.

Her eyes flew open, searching around the room frantically for all of half a second before she recognized the familiar wall of their bedroom around her. Leaning forward eagerly, the Doctor grabbed hold of her and helped her sit up ever so slightly, just enough to properly see around her, kissing her hand gently and waiting for her to speak.

He didn't have to wait long.

"What-" she stopped to clear her throat, rough with disuse, "What happened?"

"I came to pick you up – it was supposed to be a surprise – and I found you half-unconscious, shivering and running a dangerously high fever. Endolopian Flu. Very dangerous. Would have killed a human at the stage you'd reached," he explained gently, still not quite sure just how well she was yet and not wanting to overwhelm her. "So I brought you back here and...made sure you got well again. We're very lucky. Your Time Lord biology protected you from the worst of it, but your body took a hit. It's been a bit slow-going getting you up and running again. Figuratively speaking at least, I think you still need a bit of rest before you're actually up to running again."

She listened attentively the entire time he spoke, not interrupting him once, which he was rather surprised at. He looked at her closely. He'd spent nearly every moment since bringing her on board staring a her intently, not wanting to let her out of his sight for a moment lest she take a turn for the worse. But looking at her now, he could see that her color was finally starting to return, her eyes, hidden from his for the majority of her time asleep, were alight and alive once more, and her smile was back. Small and and hesitant and tired maybe, but most certainly present.

She didn't seem to know what to say in response to his explanation. He could see the gamut of emotions behind her eyes – thankfulness that he'd picked her up and nursed her back to health, embarrassment and anger at getting sick in the first place, and the simple yet extremely complex look of love that he was always grateful to see shining out at him.

Finally she seemed to make up her mind about how to respond. "You nursed me back to health from our bedroom?

"I had you in the med bay, but once you showed signs of improving, I moved you in here. Figured you'd be more comfortable," he told her, rubbing circles into the back of her hand.

"You had me in the med bay did you?" she asked, a sinful smirk gracing her lips that was even lovelier than usual just because of the length of time he'd stared at her face without one. "Well, _I_ was asleep, sweetie, but if you were more comfortable getting your kit off in here, that's understandable I suppose."

He flushed red. It wasn't often that River was able to make him blush anymore, at least not while whey were alone – he still managed to go red as a tomato if there were others around.

"That is _not_ what I meant and you know it!" he exclaimed, feeling the heat on his face as he wagged his finger at her. "I-I didn't! I would never! Not while you were sick – while you were passed out! _River_!"

She laughed, bright and happily and after days of staring at her nearly lifeless body, it was music to his ears. "I know. I just wanted to get that pitiful look off your face."

She leaned over to where he sat on a chair next to her bedside, pulling on his arm, motioning for him to lean in so she could kiss him soundly. It was short and sweet and as innocent as a kiss with River could possibly be and he hated when they broke apart.

"So how long was I out exactly?"

"Three days, two hours and... twenty-seven minutes precisely. Since I found you at least, but I don't think you were out for too long before that," he answered promptly, not even needing to rely on his innate sense of time to answer. He'd spent enough time staring at his watch, counting the minutes until she woke up again. She'd come to briefly a few times, but never for more that a few seconds and was never very coherent before dropping back to sleep.

"Three days?" she asked, shock written on her face. "Are you certain?"

"Course I'm certain!" he huffed. "I've been staring at the bloody clock the entire time, waiting for you to wake up! I cold tell you down to the second."

That got her attention. She sat up straighter, keeping hold of his hand but narrowing her eyes. "What do you mean you were staring at the clock? Doctor, you don't mean you sat here the entire time I was asleep?" she asked disbelievingly.

"Of course I did!" he said, grasping her hand even tighter. "Where else did you want me to be?"

"Sweetie, you have the attention span of a goldfish. You can't tell me you stayed cooped up in here waiting for me to wake up for three days. You didn't go out on some hair-brained adventure? No one called and asked for help?"

He was almost starting to feel insulted at the continued disbelief in her voice. "River, you are my wife. You were sick. How could you expect me to go anywhere? There were no adventures and no calls for help...well I may have gotten a message saying that 22nd century Earth was being invaded by a race of humanoid frogs, but that can wait."

A stern look crossed her face as she scolded him, pulling her hand out of his grasp. "What do you mean that can wait? I'd say that was rather important!"

He shook his head vehemently. "I have a time machine, River. _It can wait_. There is nothing more important that making sure you get better, do you understand?"

She shook her head softly, and he knew that while she still didn't agree with him, she was through arguing her point. "Stupid man," she whispered as she looked at him with fondness in her eyes.

Taking his rare win in stride, and putting it down mostly due to her continued lag in energy, he turned and picked up the tray he had sitting on the nightstand. "All right now, Doctor Song, here I've got seventeen different varieties of tea. None of them are particularly how you usually take it but they are all guaranteed to restore energy and one is even brewed specifically to help recover from exactly the strain of flu you had, so drink that first. Then if you're feeling up to it, I have three different types of soup that should get you back up to full-steam in no time."


End file.
